This article is part of an ongoing series of data-driven articles from PocketGamer.biz and App Annie highlighting trends in the global mobile games sector using App Annie’s app market data.

In this week’s column, we’re celebrating the speed of Activision and King’s endless runner Crash Bandicoot: On the Run.

It’s hit 21 million downloads in the four days following its 28 March global release.

And that makes it the fastest runner game to 20 million downloads by a factor of more than five.

Previously, the fastest game to 20 million downloads was Temple Run 2.

“Part of the success lies in both the familiarity and freshness of the game,” comments App Annie’s senior market insights manager Donny Kristianto.

“It features the same characters and gameplay mechanic familiar to console fans, yet the game also takes cues from other popular runner games like Subway Surfers and Temple Run — with simple gesture controls making it accessible for both fans of the console titles and new mobile gamers.

“Given King’s proven experience in running live operations from their Candy Crush series — with seasonal content plans, new characters and challenges — players can look forward to fresh content and deep progression possibilities, which will drive future consumer spend.”

For more insight into the gaming sector, App Annie’s Game IQ is a vertically tailored analytics product, that provides insight into dimensions such as class, genre, subgenre and tags. Games can now be analyzed by broad category class (tuning), genre, subgenre, and tags (modifiers) such as IP, art style, settings, monetization mechanic, and more.

For more information register for a demo here